Turkey’s Erdogan thanks Musk for helping with launch of satellite

Presidency releases video of Thursday’s conversation between the Turkish president and founder of Tesla, SpaceX

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has thanked Elon Musk, the founder of electric carmaker Tesla and space exploration company SpaceX, for helping with the launch of Turksat 5A, a Turkish communications satellite.

The Turkish Presidency Friday released the video of Thursday’s conversation between the two, during which they discussed a number of issues ranging from the digital economy, Turkey’s National Space Program, and the country’s first domestic electric car TOGG.

Erdogan said the Turksat 5B satellite will be launched into space on Sunday via SpaceX, and thanked Musk for helping Turkey with the January launch of the 5A satellite.

“We’ll gift you with an NFT (non-fungible token) of satellite art created by 5,000 of our children,” he added.

Musk expressed gratitude for the gift, saying that he looks forward to “launching the satellite and doing many things with Turkey in the future.”

Musk, the richest man in the world, was recently named Person of the Year 2021 by Time magazine.